Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Little Miss Constant Amazer

Abby continues to amaze us...

Over the weekend while giving Abby her bath, she said and signed "finished."  I told her that she needed to wash her toes, only as a stalling tactic while I finished brushing my teeth.  She insisted... "finished!"

I hurried up and finished up my tooth-brushing, for fear of even more insistence!

While the water drained Abby looked up and said "owl" a couple of times.  Anny had joined us in the bathroom at this point, and the two of us stood over Abby and were bewildered about why she would be saying owl, and so persistently.  Owl.  OWl.  OWL!

We were not paying attention to the whole picture; we were relying on her very primitave speech.  She is only 19 months old after all, she's not supposed to be using sentences.  (and she doesn't... much) 

She was signing to try to bring her parents up to speed.  I can only imagine that in her little mind she's thinking "these people are responsible for my safety and wellbeing, but they can't figure out that I'm signing what I'm trying to say?" Yeah, I put a lot of my own ideas in her head from time to time.

So anyway, back to the bath.  She was done.  She was watching the water drain.  The next logical step, for all but two people in the world....  She was ready for her....

Towel.

Yeah, I smacked myself in the head for that one.  She's very communicative, if only we pay attention.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

18 Months Old!

Okay, here we are less than a week from Abby's 19 month mark, and I'm just getting around to celebrating 18 months.... I swear it's not all my fault!

Because of our trips and schedules and plans, Abby did not have her 18 month Well Baby Visit until last week.  At the visit she got two shots, one in each arm, as well as the regular check up.

She's doing really well as far as height and weight go.  She's a whopping 25 pounds (60th Percentile) and 32.5 inches (75th Percentile).  What that means is that her height has balanced out her weight over the course of learning to walk and run.  She's on the tall side, but that does not mean she will be tall later on necessarily. 

Abby also continues to delight learning new words, and honing in on the words that she has jumbled in the past.  We're always delighted to hear "mama... dada" when I'm not around, and visa versa.  She knows that we all belong together.  She still does not say "Abby" clearly, but understands who she is in pictures and mirrors. 

Unfortunately for me she can already figure out when I'm making up words for books.  She tends to latch on to one book at a time, which bores ME!  I know, I know, it's not about me.  But you don't understand, there are only so many times that I can bark like a dog at the right part without going hoarse. 

In a book that our friend Elise gave Abby for Christmas, after her travels to meet-and-greet with real penguins in Antartica, there is on spot that I "helped" Anny with one day.  Something about "these penguins like to eat...FISH!"  My help was adding emphasis to "fish" and now she will force Anny to pause so that I can be included.  It's adorable, and a little weird that she's that detail oriented after just one instance!

She's a handful, but a good handful.  (Remember, evan cash can come in handfuls!)

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

We're Back from Christmas...And New Year's...

I guess I should start with Christmas and will blog later about other subjects...

This Christmas I took off almost a full two weeks from work between holidays, vacation and sick days I only had to work for about a half of a day in the middle.  Turns out that putting in that half day was good for my coming back to the office yesterday because I could hit the ground running just a little bit.

We spent the first week visiting with Paul and Sarahlynn and their girls in St Louis.  Aside from plane delays on the Baltimore side of both flights, it was a wonderful time away.  The extra two hour delay on our way out was certainly not the best way to start a trip, but Abby was a great sport.  I took her over to the B gate at BWI and we found some children headed out to Orlando to play with.  They danced, jumped and chased each other for so long that Anny texted "everything okay?" 

Since we only get the cousins together every six months or so, for now, it always makes me just a little bit nervous about how they will react to each other.  Turns out, once again, that there is nothing to cause concern!  We arrived so late Saturday that the cousins (two girls, one 23 months, one five years) were long asleep, so the first re-meeting would wait for the morning.  Since we were on east coast time, and they are an hour behind us, we were up first.  As everyone began to wake up, it was like a wonderful reunion for all three of them!

Abby had used the word "mine" two times the weekend before, but perfected it while we were there!  Anny and I keep comparing the three of them to the seagulls in Finding Nemo:


It really was adorable when it comes right down to it.

It was great to spend time with Anny's family, even though our time was short. 

The week of New Year's we were home.  We were sure to figure out something out of the house during the day, and got to catch up with friends during the week too.  We took Abby to the play areas at two malls (Columbia - A+ and Tysons Corner - B+) as well as the massive fish tank at our local Bass Pro Shop.  She was amused and happy to have us around, I think. 

Now we have all settled back into work and school and are getting the routine of life back down.  I would say that Abby does really well at that, too.  I know that she does better than I do, after all!

More blogging to come later this week - Abby had her 18 month check up last week, too!